JORDANIAN warplanes joined the US air force in a series of air strikes on Syria on Friday, the kingdom admitted at the weekend.

The strikes reportedly targeted Islamic State (Isis) cells and were in retaliation for an attack by a gunman linked to the group who killed two US soldiers and a US interpreter on December 13.

US Central Command, which has responsibility for the Middle East (the whole planet is divided into regional commands by the US, as part of its doctrine of “global power parity” which stipulates it must be able to match any other country militarily in any part of the world) said that it bombed more than 70 targets, and that it had killed or captured 23 “terrorist operatives” since December 13 across Syria and Iraq.

US troops retain a presence in north-east Syria, while Turkish troops remain in the north-west and Israel has advanced into the country’s south, meaning the government of former al-Qaida fighter Ahmed al-Sharaa controls only part of the state’s formal territory.